Repetition Works for the Moon

By Susan Firer

Feb. 17, 2017

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CreditIllustration by R.O. Blechman

The most recent collection by Susan Firer, former poet laureate of the city of Milwaukee, is shadowed by the sudden loss of her husband, the poet and writer Jim Hazard. Yet the book is far from gloomy. Through instinctive, intuitive observation and juxtaposition, familiar objects are revealed to be alive with meaning. In this poem, the narrator tells us how she taped the word “glister,” which means sparkle or glitter, where she will see it in her everyday life — as if to remind her of possibility, and to preserve things so they can “live long in the winds of poems.” Selected by Matthew Zapruder

Matthew Zapruder is the author of four poetry collections and “Why Poetry,” coming from Ecco. He teaches poetry at Saint Mary’s College of California and is editor at large at Wave Books. Susan Firer is the author of six poetry collections, including “The Transit of Venus,” published last year by the Backwaters Press.

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